Republican speakers at a conference on reaching Hispanic voters urged the party to tone down its rhetoric on immigration and to take up comprehensive reform in Congress, warning that the party could lose ground with the country's increasingly diverse citizenry if it doesn't.
"(Hispanics) will be the swing voters as they are today in the swing states. If you want to elect a center-right president of the United States, it seems to me you should be concerned about places like New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Florida, Texas, places where but for the Hispanic vote, elections are won and lost," said former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who co-chaired the conference organized by the new Hispanic Leadership Network.
But those gathered at the South Florida conference seemed split over whether the GOP's lack of Hispanic support is simply because of the party's tone, or if there's a more substantive problem with the GOP's policies.
"If you think it's about tone, you have missed the point," independent columnist Ruben Navarette told the audience of more than 300 at the Biltmore Hotel in the Miami suburb of Coral Gables. Other speakers blamed a liberal bias in the media and a few extreme voices in the party.
Lincoln Diaz-Balart, the Florida Republican who retired from Congress this year and has long championed immigration reform, suggested Republicans need to work their tone and message.
"The decibels have to be lower," he said. "It doesn't' matter how good are policy positions are, if we are perceived as being anti-immigrant, we cannot be the majority party."
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"(Hispanics) will be the swing voters as they are today in the swing states. If you want to elect a center-right president of the United States, it seems to me you should be concerned about places like New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Florida, Texas, places where but for the Hispanic vote, elections are won and lost," said former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who co-chaired the conference organized by the new Hispanic Leadership Network.
But those gathered at the South Florida conference seemed split over whether the GOP's lack of Hispanic support is simply because of the party's tone, or if there's a more substantive problem with the GOP's policies.
"If you think it's about tone, you have missed the point," independent columnist Ruben Navarette told the audience of more than 300 at the Biltmore Hotel in the Miami suburb of Coral Gables. Other speakers blamed a liberal bias in the media and a few extreme voices in the party.
Lincoln Diaz-Balart, the Florida Republican who retired from Congress this year and has long championed immigration reform, suggested Republicans need to work their tone and message.
"The decibels have to be lower," he said. "It doesn't' matter how good are policy positions are, if we are perceived as being anti-immigrant, we cannot be the majority party."
Read more here
Wrong it helps them.
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